Make it six wins in a row for the Mets
New York Mets' Francisco Alvarez watches his RBI-single during the 10th inning against the Padres on Friday in San Diego. Credit: AP/Gregory Bull
SAN DIEGO — In this weekend duel between perhaps the two most disappointing teams in baseball, somebody has to win — and in the first game, that somebody was the Mets.
They beat the Padres, 7-5, in 10 innings Friday night to extend their winning streak to a season-best six games.
In a four-run final frame, Jeff McNeil had a go-ahead double down the rightfield line and Francisco Alvarez added an RBI single, his fourth hit of the day. Francisco Lindor capped the rally with a two-run single.
That was enough for David Robertson to survive Manny Machado’s two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th.
“We need to start going on a little bit of a streak,” Justin Verlander said. “Some games are like yesterday’s [a blowout] and some games are like today’s — you need some things to go your way. It seems like a lot of things haven’t been going our way, so it’s nice to see that change around a little bit.”
McNeil said: “The belief has always been there. We know we’re a good team. We are just kind of waiting for this moment. We’ve won six straight — we know this is possible. It’s everything clicking . . . everything is going well right now. We all said it was there and we’re just waiting for it to come out. And it has.”
The Mets are 6-0 in July after going 7-19 in June. The Padres are 0-8 in extra-inning games.
The Mets (42-46) and Padres (41-47) entered with identical records, toiling in fourth place in their respective divisions and loitering on the fringes of the wild-card race, their loaded-with-talent rosters (with payrolls to match) inexplicably yielding underwhelming results.
The quality of the series opener about matched expectations. Before the extra inning, both teams had their share of oopsies. Luis Guillorme committed a fielding error to allow an unearned run in the first inning. In the seventh, Ha-Seong Kim doubled into the leftfield corner but came up well short in his bid for another base, thrown out by Tommy Pham instead of scoring the go-ahead run on Juan Soto’s ensuing double.
The Mets had a baserunner in all but two innings, stranding 13 altogether (12 in the first nine innings). Starling Marte twice grounded into inning-ending double plays with the bases loaded. The Padres had Verlander on the ropes in the third, but with the bases loaded, Gary Sanchez — he of the one-week stint with the Mets in May — pounded an inning-ending double-play grounder to shortstop.
“They’re playing well, we’re playing well, we’re close in the standings,” McNeil said. “We need to keep playing good baseball. We’re doing that right now.”
Verlander and Yu Darvish, older aces who haven’t quite pitched like it this year, slogged through similar starts.
Darvish labored for five frames and gave up three runs.
Verlander also gave up three runs (two earned) in six innings, registering a second consecutive quality start for the first time in 2023. He followed three ugly innings with three much better ones, allowing one walk and no hits in the back half of his outing, but he had a season low-tying two strikeouts.
“Verlander, not carrying his normal stuff and command but staying engaged,” manager Buck Showalter said. “Those are the games that I am really honored and proud to watch those guys pitch. Because they get out there and survive in those games.”
Lindor’s latest big game included a 3-for-5 line with a homer, three RBIs and two steals. His OPS is up to .805.
“The whole entire year I’ve been saying it: It’s been an uphill fight,” he said. “Right now it seems like the road got a little flatter.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
